When you go hunting, not on the computer, but actually out in the hills with a real gun looking for deer, you have all sorts of senses working for you. Primarily, you have eyes, ears and touch.  Mostly, eyes and ears.  When you game, you have your eyes, and just your eyes.  Imagine trying to track down real deer with just your eyes.  You don’t get to hear the rustle behind you, you don’t get to listen for the hooves, you just have to sit there and look for them.  While doable, its not nearly as effective as using both senses.

That’s what wireless surround sound speakers do for your gaming, if your game is up to it.  With the right game and the right speakers, you can use your ears as well as your eyes to pinpoint exactly where the next mob is coming from so you can flip around and take them down before anyone else in your party knows where to shoot.  Surround sound speakers that aren’t chained to a computer are the big secret of a lot of really good gamers.  By not being chained to the computer, they can move freely, and by having the surround sound, they know where to shoot.

If you are using music speakers for gaming, you’re missing out.  If you’re using gaming speakers for listening to music, on the other hand, you’re lucky.  You now know exactly where the bass guy is so you can bean him with your death ray… wait, music doesn’t work that way, does it?

First, to the issue of speaker stands cluttering your lounge. This is most easily solved by installing speaker brackets on your wall or ceiling. Speaker brackets are designed to make setting up home theatre easy, and good ones allow even quite large speakers to be held securely out of the way while providing for the fine adjustments necessary to achieve optimum surround sound. Installing these brackets is generally straight forward, and speakers up to 40 pounds each can be fixed safely to drywall as long as the recommended bolts are used.

The other piece of the puzzle is to get rid o those tangled wires. Two solutions present themselves – if upgrading is an option, wireless speakers are now mature technology with obvious benefits. The alternative is to have an electrician wire a speaker port into your wall, near where you are planning on mounting the speaker. These ports are discreet and tidy and allow you to connect speakers to your home theatre system by routing the cables out of sight, through your wall cavity. Cover plates for the ports have sockets for a range of connectors so you can upgrade down the track if need be. The home handyperson can even install these without professional help, as no live power is involved in most cases.

These measures allow the setup of a compact but high quality home theatre system, without the inconvenience of free standing speakers and cables – for many, this type of setup will be the excuse you have been waiting for to set up your surround sound speakers properly instead of just sticking them in a cabinet!